Tag Archives: Sandhill Crane

Orlando Wetlands – March 12, 2023

March 17, 2024Orlando Wetlandsbaby, Barred Owl, Great Egret, landscape, red-bellied woodpecker, Sandhill CraneEd Rosack

The last time I was at Orlando Wetlands was February 10th. It was a nice walk but I didn’t get many photos I liked, so I didn’t post about it on the blog. Here’s one from that day that did turn out:

Spoonie!

I decided to go again last week to see what’s changed and I’m glad I did. There were many more photos there this time. Here are some of them.

I said hello as I walked by a couple of photographers and they were nice enough to point out this Barred Owl posing on a dead tree. It looks wet, like it’s drying off after plunging into water after prey.

“Who cooks for you?”

A Great Egret in the distance looked like it would head towards me so I followed it with my lens. It was nice to have several seconds to check my settings and adjust a few (especially exposure compensation). Things happen pretty fast and there’s usually no opportunity to do that. It touched down close by and I was able to capture a lot of detail in its feathers.

Graceful arrival

I spotted a single woodpecker staying very close to this hole in a dead palm tree. It was sticking its head into the hole like it might be feeding hatchlings, but I couldn’t see anything in the dark interior. I watched for several minutes and a second one landed on the same tree. After about a minute the first bird left and the second one took over with the same behaviors. Even though I couldn’t see inside, it seems clear they’re a pair and this is a nest. The male (with his red forehead) is on the left and the female’s on the right.

A Red-bellied Woodpecker couple

I got several images with both birds in the frame, but their poses hid one or the other’s face / eyes. In the image above I combined two frames in photoshop to best show both of them.

There’s a family of Sandhill Cranes there with two colts that are about three weeks old. I found them as I was getting ready to leave. The young ones took time off from following Mom around and learning how to forage to have a little friendly challenge match. It only lasted for a few seconds and all ended well.

Sibling Rivalry

The header photo is another view of one of the colts next to a parent.

I try to watch for possible landscape photos as I walk around. This scene near the entrance caught my eye and I photographed it with my iPhone. I shot in RAW mode and made two exposures (I’m still using this technique that I posted about a long time ago: https://edrosack.com/2011/01/21/two-image-pano-hdr-focus-stacking/). After processing and combining in photoshop, I’m pleased with how it turned out. iPhones are very capable cameras.

Wetland morning

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, take a walk around a park close to you. And make some photos!

Nature and Nurture

April 10, 2023Orlando WetlandsAnhinga, birds, Common Gallinule, Sandhill Crane, Spoonbill, wildlife, Wood StorkEd Rosack

I met my friend Lutfi at Orlando Wetlands Park last Saturday morning. I was a bit worried at first since I didn’t see as many birds around as on my last visit in early March. The Whistling Ducks seemed to be hiding and there were fewer Spoonbills in the trees and flying around. I also couldn’t find the nest that’d been near the boardwalk.

Then I did start to see some things. There was a Sand Hill Crane Family foraging in some shallow water near the south Lake Searcy shore.

Sand Hill Crane colt and parent foraging

A Common Gallinule family foraging close by the boardwalk.

Common Gallinule chick and parent foraging

There was also a lot of noise coming from the Cypress stand to the east of the boardwalk – baby birds squawking and begging to be fed. I’m glad I had a long lens and teleconverter since they were quite far away.

Two Anhinga chicks in nest Wood Stork chick and parent in nest

This Spoonbill fledgling was by itself when I first saw it. Perhaps it’s from the nest that I couldn’t find? A parent soon arrived in the tree and fed it. It won’t be long before it’s taking care of itself.

Hungry youngster

A lot of change out there in just over a month. Nature in action nurturing a new generation of birds. What a thriving rookery and what a fantastic Central Florida Photo Op!

I made all of the photos in this post last Saturday except for the header image, which is from my previous visit. You can see a larger version of it at this link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/52792040905/in/dateposted-public/

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, make some photos!

Joe Overstreet – Part 2

January 11, 2020Osceola CountyCow, Kestrel, killdeer, landscape, Sandhill Crane, Sissor-tailed Flycatcher, snail kiteEd Rosack

I thought I’d post a few more photos from last Saturday’s trip to Osceola County. I hope you enjoy them.

Florida cow country: Joe Overstreet Road goes right through several cattle pastures. I imagine they look the same as they did a hundred years ago.

Snail Kite launch. We usually see one at the landing and it may be the same bird each time.

Killdeer in flight. I normally find these on the ground. This is the first time I’ve managed a flight photo of one.

Bird on a wire 4 – American Kestrel. I rarely catch sight of these and was excited to spot several on this trip.

Sandhill Cranes on final approach. There were more Sandhill Cranes (~50+) in the pastures along Joe Overstreet that morning than I’ve ever seen in one place before. I’m guessing the extras were winter migrants in from Wisconsin. Several of the cranes were banded.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Not a great photo, but this is a life bird (first sighting) for me – so I’ll include it. There were two and they stayed quite far away from us.

Osceola County / Joe Overstreet Road is a wonderful place! In addition to the eagles and these birds, we also spotted Purple Gallinules, Ospreys, Eastern Meadowlarks, Loggerhead Shrikes, Palm Warblers, Eastern Phoebes, Savanah Sparrows, our normal wading birds and others. We looked for Bobwhites and Red-cockaded Woodpeckers (at Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area), but didn’t find any.

You can view more of my photos from there in this album on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/albums/72157670869688025

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

Mother’s Day 2019

May 12, 2019INSIDE FLORIDAAlligator, baby, birds, Great Horned Owl, limpkin, mother, Mother's day, Sandhill Crane, Spoonbill, wildlifeEd Rosack

Happy Mother’s Day to all Moms far and wide!

To help celebrate, I thought I’d share some photos I’ve made of Florida Mothers and their babies. These are all wild animals / birds and they’re from several places over several years, so I’ll include where and when in the captions.

Momma gator guarding her nest and 4 (blurry) babies. Along La Chua Trail, Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, Gainesville, FL, December 2006

Momma Sandhill Crane and chick foraging at Viera Wetlands, March 2017

Spoonbill Mom returns, St. Augustine Alligator Farm, May 2010

Great Horned Owl Mom and chick in the nest, Circle B Bar, March 2018

Momma Limpkin and baby, Circle B Bar Reserve, October 2013

Great Egret Mom and chicks, St. Augustine Alligator Farm, April 2011

It’s amazing how devoted Moms are, and it’s fascinating to watch them raise their babies.

You can click on these images to see larger versions on Flickr. Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go spend time with your Mom!

Love is in the air…

February 24, 2019INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera Wetlandsboat, Great Blue Heron, nest, Sandhill Crane, sunriseEd Rosack

At least it is at Viera Wetlands – a wonderful place to witness bird courtship and nesting behaviors.

This Great Blue Heron was lazy. He was raiding an abandoned nest close to his and scavenging sticks to bring back to his mate. A situation like this can be a great setup for photographers. Watch for a cycle or two and you’ll get a good idea of what’s going to happen next. It’ll allow you to anticipate and get good action / flight shots.

Nesting Great blue Herons

I was back at Viera Wetlands to check on the Sandhill Crane nest that I told you about a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, that nest has disappeared. The water in that spot is much higher and the birds abandoned it when it flooded.

Sandhill Cranes seem to be a very successful species, but I wonder about their nesting habits. Building in low-lying, marshy areas seems risky. How often do they lose eggs or chicks to flooding or predators like alligators, raccoons, etc?

We did spot two other Crane nests, although we almost drove right by the one below. We heard a bird calling as it flew by and stopped to watch it land. That was when we noticed its mate and nest. A few moments later the mate rose, revealing two eggs it had been tending. It stepped away and after a quick inspection to make sure all was well, the other one carefully took its place. I hope this nest and the second one we saw will survive.

Nesting Sandhill Cranes

I didn’t think our sunrise stop along the St. Johns river was that good, but I enjoyed making this photo of fishermen leaving the boat ramp before dawn.

Let’s get an early start

The light was dim. I made a second exposure at a higher ISO to keep the shutter speed fast and the boat sharp. Then I merged the two frames in Photoshop.

You can click on the photos in this post to see larger versions. And you can read my previous posts about Viera Wetlands at this link: https://edrosack.com/category/viera-wetlands/, and view many more photos from Viera Wetlands in this album on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/albums/72157623223995224

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

Viera Wetlands 2-6-19

February 10, 2019INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera WetlandsAmerican Robin, birds, black and white, Deer, flycatcher, landscape, Sandhill Crane, sunrise, web, wildlifeEd Rosack

Here are some photos from a trip to Viera Wetlands last week. There’s a lot to see there!

Dawn in the harbor – A sunrise stop at the Cocoa Riverfront Park on the way to Viera

Sandhill Crane and egg in nest – it’s fairly close to the berm. I think I’ll go back in a week or so and see if it’s hatched.

Deer – I’ve seen them several times hanging out at the east end of the park

Web – The spiders were busy and some of their work was catching the early morning sunlight

American Robin – Winter visitors / migrants are showing up in force

Eastern Phoebe. ~~Ash-throated Flycatcher(?)~~ I didn’t recognize this bird when I made the photo. ~~and I’m still not totally sure what it is~~. A Great crested Flycatcher was seen at Viera Wetlands in January, but this one seems too small for that. An Ash-throated Flycatcher was seen there in previous years. Many thanks to Wally Jones for the ID help!

So I had a very nice visit to a wonderful place – if you’ve never been, now is a good time to go!

You can see all my posts about Viera Wetlands at this link: https://edrosack.com/category/viera-wetlands/

And I have many more photos from Viera Wetlands in this album on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/albums/72157623223995224

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

A Florida Photo Parable?

June 22, 2018INSIDE FLORIDAbirds, commentary, Sandhill Crane, wildlifeEd Rosack

Sandhill Crane Family 1

A couple of weeks ago, I was on my morning walk with a friend when we spotted an adult Sandhill Crane and two colts. As we drew near, the adult started leading the colts around a corner and away from danger (us). We kept walking and when they came back in sight, there was only one young one with the parent.

Sandhill Crane Family 2

The adult obviously knew that one baby was missing. It turned around and headed back toward us to find the second one – which had wandered in the opposite direction and was lost in the bushes on our right.

Sandhill Crane Family 3

The adult found the missing colt and led it back out to reunite the family.

Sandhill Crane Family 4

And they went on their way. The adult looks like it’s going to give the wayward colt a stern talking to!

Watching something like this makes me think about how strong parenting instincts are in animals. We tried not to threaten these birds, but the adult crane was going to get the baby back even if it meant facing off against two large people.

Much like people should face off against a government that takes human children away from their families.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

It's still that time of year!

March 26, 2017INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera Wetlandsbirds, Great Blue Heron, Otter, red-winged blackbird, Sandhill CraneEd Rosack

And now it’s official – the vernal equinox was last Monday. Kevin M., Tom M. and I headed for Viera Wetlands early on Friday morning to see how spring is going there.

I wrote about the bird nesting at Gatorland a couple of weeks ago (https://edrosack.com/2017/03/12/its-that-time-of-year-again/). It turns out that there’s a lot of activity at Viera too.

We saw Sand Hill Crane families:

What’s Momma doing? Sand Hill Crane and chick foraging at Viera Wetlands. The chick’s concentration is fascinating.

And Great Blew Heron families (Pun intended – Windy day? Blew? Blue? ):

Breezy Blue and baby – Mom guards the nest and chicks

And caught a brief glimpse of a family of River Otters before they disappeared into the reeds:

River Otter family – 3 or 4 of them ran across the road and into the water

I have one more photo to show you. Since I started using the Olympus E-M1 II camera, I’ve been on a quest to apply its ‘pro-capture’ mode to photograph a Red-winged Blackbird in flight. Their shoulders are pretty and you can’t see them very well when they’re perched. This is my best attempt so far. I like it, but I’m going to keep trying. I’d like to catch one in a little better light and it’d be nice to have the bird facing more toward the camera. While we’re wishing, a catch light in the eyes would be wonderful too!

Red-winged Blackbird in flight –

We also looked for a different sunrise spot and stopped by a pasture on the way to Viera. Unfortunately, nature didn’t cooperate – I ended with a few uninspiring photos. You can look at one (if you must) on Flickr at this link.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some spring time photos!

July's for the birds…

July 10, 2016INSIDE FLORIDA, Osceola Countybirds, bobwhite, Burrowing Owl, Cow, landscape, Sandhill Crane, sunrise, whooping crane, wildlifeEd Rosack

Kevin M. and I knowingly and by chance violated many photography thumb rules yesterday morning. My first example:

Sunrise over the pasture

As landscape photos go, it breaks rules: It’s not all in focus; I didn’t use a low ISO to minimize noise; I used a long lens (so I could keep power lines out of the frame), not a wide-angle ; And I didn’t use a tripod. But I like how it turned out. I’m pleased by the composition and colors. It also has a bit of mystery with the fog, and the cows that are a bit hidden. Florida does look like this.

Next up are some bird photos. In Florida, July is one of the hottest months. Most photographers know this and many choose to stay inside – because the birds know this too and many of them also seem to disappear when it’s this hot. So what did we do? We went out looking for birds.

When we were photographing sunrise, we heard Bobwhites calling and spotted this one on the fence by the pasture. It was very patient and waited with us for better light. But I still had to violate one of my thumb rules and shoot at ISO 3200 to get a decent photo. By the way, let me just say again that technology today is wonderful. This image was at a focal length of 600mm, with a shutter speed of 1/50 second, hand-held!

Northern Bobwhite

The Burrowing Owl was a little way down on the same fence line. By this time the light was somewhat better and I could shoot at ISO 1600 and 1/100 sec. Still pretty impressive stabilization and sensor performance.

Burrowing Owl

Those three photos were at our first stop! Kevin wanted to show me some Red-cockaded Woodpeckers he’d spotted at the Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area. I’ve been there before looking for them and this time we think we heard some, but didn’t manage to see or photograph any.

We did spot some other not so common birds including Brown-headed Nuthatches, Common Ground Doves, and Eastern Meadowlarks.

On the way back, we went by a farm where one of Florida’s Whooping Cranes hangs out. I’ve been there several times looking for it without success. Until this time:

Whooping Crane and two Sandhill Cranes

This is more of a record shot than a great photo. The light is harsh and the birds are beyond the range limit for this lens so it’s cropped in. And the July heat was making waves too, harming the image quality. But I still like it. Thumb rules? Who needs stinking’ thumb rules!

Until the 1930s, Whooping Cranes occurred naturally in Florida (see this article on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation site). There have been efforts to re-introduce them by leading them with ultra-light planes on migration routes (see this site). In January 2016, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced they’d “stop supporting the use of ultralight aircraft to help young whooping cranes migrate from Wisconsin to Florida each fall”. Studies show that interacting with humans has a negative effect on the birds. I’m pretty sure this particular Whooping Crane is a survivor of the program. It’s banded yellow over green on its left leg, but a short google search didn’t turn up any info.

So rules of thumb are good – especially if you understand them and know when to break them. Breaking the rules led me to a sunrise photo I like and four life-birds yesterday (thanks Kevin!). By the way, you can click on any of these for larger versions on Flickr.

And thanks to all of you for stopping by and reading my blog. Now, go make some photos!

P.S. Stay tuned for some photo stories from Utah. MK and I had an epic weekend out there and I’ll share it when I finish processing the images.

Walking 'round the Wetlands, 5-17-2014

May 24, 2014INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera Wetlandsbirds, black and white, infrared, landscape, Little Blue Heron, Sandhill Crane, wildlifeEd Rosack

Kevin K., Kevin M, and I went to Viera Wetlands last weekend. We’d had heavy rain the week before and the roads were closed to cars, so we walked.

Handsome Blue – Little Blue Heron

You’ll see different things walking versus driving. When you drive, you can cover a larger area and maybe see many more things. But sometimes the faster pace and the isolation inside the vehicle will make you miss something that you might see if you walk. And when you walk, it’s easier to stop and really look at something. Or stop and wait for something to happen. When we first saw the Little Blue Heron, it was in the shade. But we stayed for a few moments and the sun rose enough to put it into some better light. Worth waiting for, and we probably wouldn’t have if we were driving.

We started too late for a sunrise photo, but I did manage to make this infrared image of the moon setting into the marsh.

Marsh Moon – The moon sinks into the clouds over Viera Wetlands. IR, B&W, 3 frame Vertical Panorama

We also stopped for a bit to watch a family of Sandhill Cranes. With all the birders that frequent Viera Wetlands, they’re very used to people and you can get pretty close without disturbing them. They’re interesting birds. Whenever I see two adults foraging, they seem to take turns keeping an eye on things. One will be head down, while the other is up and looking around. When there’s a young one with its parent, it always seems to mimic what the parent is doing.

This one! This one is a good bug to eat! – Sandhill Crane and Colt at Viera Wetlands

Even though the birding action in our area might be slowing down as summer approaches, we still enjoyed ourselves. We spent some quality time out in nature, and made a few photos we like. Another good day for a photo-op in Central Florida.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now, go make some photos!

Central Florida Photo Ops

What and where they are and how to photograph them.

Tag Archives: Sandhill Crane

Orlando Wetlands – March 12, 2023

Nature and Nurture

Joe Overstreet – Part 2

Mother’s Day 2019

Happy Mother’s Day to all Moms far and wide!

Love is in the air…

Viera Wetlands 2-6-19

A Florida Photo Parable?

It's still that time of year!

July's for the birds…

Walking 'round the Wetlands, 5-17-2014